Any thoughts on Washington & Lee?
https://www.wlu.edu/admissions/scholarships-and-aid
yes my post was tongue in cheek- but I’ve summarized a lot of what the “expert” financial aid consultants tell people to do. And now that the OP has posted details of their finances- I think their financial situation is relatively straightforward.
OP- do yourself (and your D) a favor- make a spreadsheet of every four year institution within commuting distance to where you live. Figure out which ones could be affordable based on a budget of 10K per year from you, the $5500 federal loan, lowball some earnings from your D (2K for the summer? Another 1K during the year?) and potentially a merit award from the college if they do merit. The colleges that will “package” the merit with the needbased aid- just go with a conservative merit estimate for now if it looks like your D is in the ballpark. Too many variables.
Take the ones which come in under or near your budget and ask your D to find something to love about each one. One of these might be a college where the median is well below her academic stats-- but they have a cool internship program at your state capital. One of these might be a college which is primarily a suitcase school and not a lot of campus life- but it has a well regarded major in her area of interest. One might be a good fit academically but an ugly campus with a lot of cement… but terrific results getting kids into law school or working at think tanks or doing cool work with NGO’s.
You get my point. If it’s affordable and she can live at home and can likely get admitted- voila- find something to love about it, and now she’s going to college and has her safety school already picked out- she’s ahead of the game!!!
The rest will follow. Once you’ve gotten your D on board with this methodology, you are likely to get her to admit that perhaps Alabama is a nice place to live- once she looks at the price tag (assuming she gets the big merit award), the incredible opportunities at a big campus, plus the ability to dorm and live away from home.
I’m not suggesting that every single school on the list needs to be put there with her teeth gritted. But all of you will sleep better once you realize that with your budget, her loans (no loans for you, just for her) and some compromises, she is going to college (yay!) and is going to have incredible opportunities to shine. Can she explore a couple of colleges where the money looks tight and admissions are iffy? Of course. But to round off her list, not to form the “Dream School” component of the list.
Don’t pay a consultant BTW.
I agree. The financial situation outlined by the OP is not “unusual”. Many others are in the same situation every year.
I can’t imagine what a financial aid consultant would do for this family. It’s not like they have HUGE assets that they would like to somehow protect (not that that is something that one can easily do).
The best thing this family can do is run the net price calculators. See what they say.
Then start the search for colleges that will give full tuition at least scholarships.
I would not rule out southern schools…as many of these have generous merit aid. They just do.
ETA…to the OP…there are lots of people who find that paying the college calculated family contribution is beyond their ability to pay for a variety of reasons. You aren’t the only ones.
Save your money…a consultant is not where your limited resources should go,
@Momto2girls - A $10K Parent Contribution will be tough to swing with merit aid. There are very few full rides – full tuition is usually easier to come by.
As a rising junior, there are a few independent scholarships that she would have time to apply for if she has superb SAT/ACT and impressive extracurriculars – the Coolidge Foundation offers a full ride to any 4 year college or university, as does the Cameron Impact scholarship. With demonstrated financial need, there are other scholarships out there and being First Gen will help.
But the most merit will come from institutions themselves. Grinnell and Kenyon are great LACs offering up to full tuition. Vandy, Wash U., and USC offer full tuition scholarships (separate applications for Vandy and Wash U.; USC has an early deadline for merit consideration). Bryn Mawr only offers up to ca. 30K. If hers is a nominating school, UVA’s Jefferson Scholarship is a full ride. Duke’s AB scholarship is also a full ride, as is Davidson’s Belk. The Robertson Foundation offers full rides to both Duke and UNC, and UNC also has the Moorhead-Cain. U Chicago has some merit and good FA. The Stamps foundation also offers some full ride scholarships. Tulane, Emory, U. RIchmond, and Washington and Lee (probably way too conservative) also offer some full rides. She will need tippy-top stats for many of these scholarships, as they are harder to get than getting into HYP or S (and the schools are looking to entice otherwise ivy-bound kids to choose their schools over the ivies).
This is all going to work out for your daughter. There is a school for her that will provide a merit scholarship based on the states you quote. The question is what school is going to be best for her. Like other’s have said, your family’ circumstances are more common than you think. Could you empower your daughter to talk with college counselor’s about this situation. They will be well positioned to help. A financial aid consultant will have no magic wand here. There is a good fit for you daughter. Her counselors at the private school seem like the best support.
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But when I ran calculator on one, they used merit to replace need rather than to replace some of EFC>>>
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True. Merit aid gets applied FIRST, and then (if available) need based aid.
If you want to decrease your EFC (which it sounds like the goal), then your child has to attend a school that will give a merit award that is SO HUGE that not only does it cover “need” but it’s big enough to ALSO cut into EFC.
For example:
$25k = EFC
$40k = COA
$30k = merit award
$10k = remaining cost. The merit was so big that it covered the $15k of need, and also reduced the EFC by $15k as well.
As mentioned above, since you would get declined for a Plus Loan, your DD would be allowed to borrow 9500 for frosh year…but please avoid that if possible. That is a LOT for a freshman to borrow, particularly one who’ll be doing a humanities major. At this rate, she’d be graduating with more than $40k of debt…which is too much.
Your goal really can’t be looking for need-based aid, unless your child gets into a “super-aid” HYPSW school, because the others will give you an unaffordable EFC. In most FA pkgs there will already be loans in them, so your DD wouldn’t be able to take out a student loan to reduce that EFC.
The goal should be to find schools with merit awards that are at least for Full Tuition, so that the remaining costs can be covered by parent contribution, student summer earnings, and a small student loan.
I agree that your DD should not exclude southern schools. The comment of “Deep South” suggests that y’all really don’t know what many/most southern schools are like. There is nothing “Deep South” about most of them. Both of my kids went to a southern undergrad. At their school over half of the students are from OOS. Thousands of the students are from Calif, Florida and Illinois. There are students from all 50 states.
If your DD’s scores end up being high enough, there are a number of them that would give her free tuition.
I’ll have to look to see if Rhodes College is awarding full tuition awards anymore, but that could be a great option. Another low-cost and gives merit but very beloved public LAC is Truman State.
Here in the DC suburbs, there are lots of families in your situation. The kids end up at our CCs for the first two years, and then head off to their home-state public Us. A student with your daughter’s stats would be competitive for a full tuition and fees scholarship like Happykid had, so do check your CCs for scholarship opportunities. What we saved in her first two years at the CC made a big difference in our ability to afford the state U she transferred to.
I don’t think the parents would automatically be denied a Plus loan. The bankruptcy was over 5 years ago. The issue would then be whether they were in default on any federal loans or 90 days or more behind on any major debts.
Not a good idea for student to borrow $10k/yr in Stafford loans, but also not a good idea to assume it is available.
The “good” news here is that with no unusual business or real estate assets, college net price calculators will be more accurate for you. When your child becomes interested in a school, run the NPC right away and see what the price range would be. Talk to the financial aid office about whether they will increase your package when the sibling enrolls as well. If so, will they add grants or loans? Many schools will increase aid when the family has more than one in college at the same time, so her second year may cost less than the first.
Find a financial safety school first. Your state university or a local community college will likely be the low price tag schools. Then build from there.
Sock away as much money as you can before she starts college, every little bit helps.
Big outside scholarships are highly competitive. She can apply, but don’t make that your primary strategy. College-specific merit aid and scholarships are generally easier to get.
And it might be beneficial to have the older daughter take a gap year so that both kids are in college at the same time. Financial aid can really increase with 2 in school.
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We lost a house. I have not a dime for retirement (DH has a plan through the city he works for). We will not be eligible for some federal loans because we had to file Chapter 13 (our five-year plan will be completed in a May 2018; DD will start college apps the following fall);
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Looks like the 5 year mark hits the year DD will be applying. @twoinanddone Is the rule 5 years?
Also, we don’t know when the home was lost. If that was more recently wouldn’t that be an issue.
That said, I totally agree that $10k per year for borrowing is too much. It should only be an option if the parents believe that they can afford to pay back the $4k per year in add’l loans for DD. And, it may be $5k per year add’l for jr and sr years…don’t remember.
Eligibility for a Parent PLUS Loan does not depend on the borrower’s credit scores or debt-to-income ratios.
The borrower of a Parent PLUS Loan must not have an adverse credit history.
What causes an adverse credit history:
A current delinquency of 90 or more days on more than $2,085 in total debt; or
More than $2,085 in total debt in collections or charged off in the past two years (before the date of the credit report); or
Default, bankruptcy discharge, foreclosure, repossession, tax lien, wage garnishment, or write-off of federal student loan debt in the past five years (before the date of the credit report)
Another very helpful thread. Thanks to the OP and all who commented to educate me on the finer details of FA.
@blossom , you rock!
It’s been good for me to realize that so many of us have unusual financial situations to deal with but that there are ways to responsibly guide our kids in the college search process.
In line with the suggestion a few posts above to start socking away what you can now, it is good practice to try living without the $X that you currently think you can pay each year toward your kids’ educations. You will find out pretty quickly whether or not that is feasible, and if the amount needs to be ratcheted down, or can be cranked up.
@momto2girls I agree with everyone else. Your financial circumstances are not that unusual at all.
I can share how we have approached college even though thankfully we are more financially secure than your current situation and a decade younger. The difference is that we also have 8 kids (2 completely independent adults, 1 a disabled adult who is semi-independent but we supplement his monthly income and manage his $$, 2 college students and 3 of them are still at home). Our youngest just finished 1st grade, so we will be similar ages when she is college age. Our estimated familial contribution is approx 3X (depends on the school) what we can actually afford to pay and still live normally and plan for retirement. I can totally relate to the max of $10,000 and that amt still be difficult even though colleges assume you can pay way more.
Scholarships are an absolute necessity for our kids if they don’t want to live at home and commute. It is really that simple. It is also a scenario where they absolutely can’t afford to dismiss affordable schools flippantly. Our 2 college students are/will be (one just graduated from high school) attending on full scholarship. Full ride scholarships are out there, but they are competitive and are most likely found at the very schools you stated that are not an option.
Schools like Bryn Mawr are not going to be affordable. You can spend the $$ and your dd can waste her time on applications for schools like that, but really, acceptances without affordability are nothing more than rejections in other packaging. My new high school graduate would have loved to attend a school like Bryn Mawr b/c it is a Critical Language Flagship and she would love to achieve superior language proficiency, but they don’t offer anywhere enough $$ for us to be able to afford it. Applying was not worth her time. It is magical thinking to think that somehow it will become affordable.
I have spent hours upon hours researching schools and merit packages. It is absolutely doable on your own and this forum is one of the best sources of reliable info. First, you have to be brutally honest in your assessment of your kids. In your OP you stated that your dd “excels on standardized tests,” but later you stated you are anticipating a 1480-1520. To put things in perspective, those are great scores, but every kid applying for competitive merit is going to have great scores. Converting those scores to ACT equivalents puts the range from 32-34. I am not positive, but I don’t think those scores are compelling for full-tuition+ scholarships at higher ranked schools like Vanderbilt’s Cornelius (I have never had a child apply to Vandy **(I’ll explain why below), but my reading of these forums makes me think Vandy rewards 35/36s with merit.) Even at schools without the test score obsession of Vandy, it takes really outstanding achievements to make a student compelling for top $$ scholarships, and even then, the odds are against being selected.
If she scores a 1480, that will not even qualify for full-tuition at Alabama next yr. (Presidential Scholar–A student with a 33-36 ACT or 1490-1600 SAT score and at least a 3.5 GPA will be selected as a Presidential Scholar and will receive $100,000 over four years ($25,000 per year).) Alabama has reduced their automatic scholarship from full-tuition to a fixed amt and raised their qualifying test scores.
All of that is say that merit $$ can be quite competitive. There are lots of extremely high achieving kids out there in similar financial situations, and they are actively pursuing merit $$ as well. Getting an $18,000 scholarship at some schools is not super competitive, but that $18,000 is absolutely useless if you need closer to $60,000 in order to attend. Spend time understanding the student profiles of scholarship winners. Read school websites carefully. Understand exactly what types of students are be awarded the scholarships and how your student fits what the university really wants Your student has to bring to the school what it is looking for.
Which brings me to my ** comment. Applying WELL to college takes a lot of time. Kids can crank out lots of junk applications quickly, but if you are applying for competitive scholarships, those applications will require effort. Then, if they are invited to scholarship interview weekends, those trips take a lot of time. It really becomes a balancing act of just how much time sr yr they have to dedicate strictly to the college process. It can become a drudgery rather quickly and then interview weekends can start on Thursday or go into a Monday. So, my kids limit the number of applications they fill out. They apply to a couple of top competitive schools that offer scholarships, but the concentration of their applications are to lower ranked schools where they are more likely to considered for tippy top merit awards. The goals is to have at least a couple of great merit offers come spring.
This is a brief synopsis of how my 12th grader’s yr panned out in the different “ranking” categories:
*top 30 school: accepted, but the scholarship was in the “cannot afford it” range for our family range
*top 60 school: accepted with one of their few full-tuition scholarships, but remaining costs for room/board/travel to and from school would still cost around $18,000/yr
**ranked around 100 school: accepted, invited to interview for on of their competitive 20 scholarships, was awarded it, scholarships are allowed to stack w/o reduction. She can stack their NM scholarship on top of their top scholars scholarship and our remaining costs negligible.
She will be attending the school ranked around 100. Her brother had very similar outcomes the yr he applied. He is attending Alabama on full scholarship b/c UA also allows the stacking of scholarships and he has 2 dept scholarships as well as an elite honors program scholarship that stack on top of their guaranteed admissions scholarship. FWIW, dd’s scholarship is connected to an elite program that offers special faculty mentoring, immediate research opportunities, and lots of other specialized perks. Ds at Bama is also part of a specialized research honors program that also offered special opportunities. His experience at Bama has been fabulous. He has also applied to multiple REUs over the past couple of yrs and has been accepted to most of them. He had the blessing of choosing amg 3 top programs for this summer. He will be applying to grad school in the fall and will be a strong applicant. Bama on his diploma is not going to “destroy” his future.
tl;dr version-- If you want to have excellent financial offers, apply to the very type of schools that you dismissed outright. Schools with specialized honors programs that court top students offer those students incredible opportunities. Top students thrive and excel at those schools and can graduate with no debt. What a great blessing!
WOW – Thank you for this comprehensive post. It is very, very helpful.
DD is going to work very hard this summer on her PSAT prep. It would be really helpful if you could share the school your DD is attending.
She excels at Chinese – will be taking college Chinese senior year – if we could find a school with good poli sci, IR, and where she could continue Chinese, it would be great.
She will go where we can afford to go. I am telling her that I’d rather see her at a school where she can live in a dorm with full aid compared to living at home and going to the University of Minnesota or Macalester – we will see if she agrees The program your son is in sounds just amazing.
DD will take SAT multiple times to get the best score possible.
Thanks again!
Yes, big schools with Honors programs may be the way to go. My DD is at OU in the honors program and loves it! OU is a big football school and she is soo not into that but she hasn’t had any issue fitting in, pleanty of other kids there that aren’t into football and partying. The one thing about a large school is that you can cherry pick you activies pass on the ones you don’t care for and enjoy the ones you like. She’s also had some awesome oppertunities because of the honors program and really enjoys the small class size the honors program offers. She’s on their National Merit scholarship so she’ll graduate debit free.
I think you should give the University of Mississippi a good look. They have a Flagship Chinese Program and offer great merit (that stacks) and National Merit would be a full ride.
While this is true, that doesn’t mean it’s wise to take large PLUS loans.
The government will give you the loans. They will also add on huge fees if you fall into default. The loans won’t be dischargeable in bankruptcy. The government can garnish any department of the treasury payments you might be eligible for such as tax refunds or social security to get its money.
@3scoutsmom suggestion of Ole Miss is an excellent one. Look at their Croft Institute as well.
My dd will be attending SC as a Top Scholar (McNair). She loves French and Russian. Originally, she thought she wanted an IR or IS focus, but as She really researched career paths she realized she wanted to get involved in economic development. So, she will be part of their CIFA cohort (French IB focus) and either minoring or doubling in Russian (actually it would be a triple bc she is already doubling in econ). They have a Chinese IB focus as well. http://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/moore/academic_programs/undergraduate_programs/undergraduate_majors/international_business/international_business_curriculum/cohort_programs/ibce_hong_kong/
There are a lot of solid options for top students seeking merit. You just have to apply wisely.
I would like to suggest Centre College in KY. It is a highly ranked LAC in a small town, and our daughter applied and was offered a very good combined merit/FA package (19K COA). She is also Chinese and I think that was considered a plus at Centre due to diversity concerns. We are from the east coast so I think that was also a factor in her great offer - geographical diversity. It has a Chinese language program and study abroad programs in China. It also has a 4 year graduation guarantee. It is a great school that works hard to attract good students because of so many kids passing it by due to its remoteness. Everyone is VERY friendly and welcoming there. If you would consider a couple of other lesser ranked women’s colleges, my daughter also was offered full tuition scholarships at Hollins University and Salem College (Salem offers cross registration with Wake Forest which has a Chinese Language Major). My daughter liked Salem better than Hollins on her visits - she thought Salem had a friendlier vibe. Her stats were lower than what you predict for your daughter. Good Luck!